[HN Gopher] Joan Didion and Kurt Vonnegut had something to say. ...
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Joan Didion and Kurt Vonnegut had something to say. We have it on
tape
https://archive.md/e6xBV
Author : tintinnabula
Score : 87 points
Date : 2025-12-22 06:17 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/books/james-
| baldwin-joan-...
| grahameb wrote:
| Direct link to the Vonnegut recordings
| https://www.92ny.org/archives/kurt-vonnegut,-jr
| gen220 wrote:
| This was an excellent listen, thank you for linking this
| directly!
|
| Kurt Vonnegut was such a clear thinker and communicator, we
| were fortunate to have him for so long.
| mentos wrote:
| Was just thinking to myself how Player Piano has never been more
| appropriate than the AI age we're in such a hurry to usher in.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Agree. It's just not a very good Vonnegut novel though. You can
| see him without (yet) a voice in the novel.
|
| If "Breakfast of Champions" is a little too nutty though, I
| think I might like his "Mother Night" best. (But maybe we like
| nutty Kurt?)
| dillydogg wrote:
| I think "Hocus Pocus" is his best, followed by "Cat's
| Cradle". But how lucky are we to have so many good ones to
| pick from?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Thanks. _Hocus Pocus_ slipped past me somehow. Now I have
| something to look forward to reading. (I liked _Cat 's
| Cradle_ too but it is also on the loopier end of Vonnegut's
| writing spectrum--but we need some more of that.)
| jandrese wrote:
| Mother Night is the book that has become more relevant every
| year since it was published, in 1962.
|
| Every time someone is an "Ironic Nazi" online I think of that
| book, and how 4chan evolved into the modern political
| juggernaut it is today.
| beardbound wrote:
| Mother night was my favorite Vonnegut book.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Maybe the reason westworld made it such a prominent theme in
| the show. All of season 3 is essentially that story.
|
| But what vonnegut missed or questioned is what is we aren't
| much more either. (Core thesis of the show is that skinner
| proved we are mostly the same as a player piano anyways)
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| I happened to reread it recently and was absolutely blown away
| by how relevant it is today, and how it is almost certainly
| more relevant today than when it was written.
| detourdog wrote:
| I think Vonnegut really had his pulse on the human condition.
| Writers such Aldous Huxley could capture parts of it but
| Vonnegut seemed to capture it in just about every book.
| sehugg wrote:
| Bluebeard is a good one too; it ruminates on the nature of art
| and how/why meaning is assigned to it.
| liamconnell wrote:
| Loved Bluebeard as well. A mature Vonnegut who knew how to
| use motifs from his earlier work. And for an old guy, he kept
| his writing fresh and energetic. The miniature story of the
| dog without a tail always comes back to me.
| neilv wrote:
| My programming teacher in 9th grade spent half the class time
| on Pascal and programming, and half like a literature or social
| studies class, including reading and discussing "Player Piano".
|
| Today, the people who most should read it and other things are
| not the people in our field. Just like the people who most
| should've been reading about the effects and dangers of Wall
| Street scamming, were not the coked-up bros doing the scamming.
| DrewADesign wrote:
| "One Headline Copywriting Strategy Increases Clicks. This is How
| It Works..."
|
| There seemed to be an era where clickbait headlines in major
| media were seen as passe... but they've seemingly made a comeback
| over the past couple years.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| My disgust at this pretentious clickbait outweighs my interest in
| the historical material.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Vonnegut is good but I think (Aldous) Huxley had more to say, at
| least that resonated more with me.
|
| I recently discovered this 1958 interview of Huxley[1]:
|
| > This is the force which in general terms can be called
| overpopulation, the mounting pressure of population pressing upon
| existing resources. ...This, of course, is an extraordinary
| thing; something is happening which has never happened in the
| world's history before. I mean, let's just take a simple fact
| that between the time of birth of Christ and the landing of the
| Mayflower, the population of the earth doubled. It rose from two
| hundred and fifty million to probably five hundred million.
| Today, the population of the earth is rising at such a rate that
| it will double in half a century.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alasBxZsb40
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Funny then, how he could be so wrong. The population is
| plummeting in many countries, and the rate of decline will only
| increase. In China, they're looking at each generation halving
| the previous (or worse).
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